my adventures with ALG, crosstalk, lakorn, and everyday life in thailand

Temporal Slip-Slidin’ And The Other ภวังค์รัก

I really liked the soundtrack to ภวังค์รัก (Concrete Clouds), the recent Thai film that I microreviewed a couple posts back. The movie’s set in 1997, so I’m assuming that the songs are ones that were popular at that time; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any information online.

Some parts of the film segue into music videos (complete with karaoke-esque subtitles!) that look highly stylized and, in a way…kind of dated: I’m guessing these are supposed to look like mid-90s Thai music videos? They were very striking and I was hoping some of them had gotten uploaded to youtube, but no luck.

I did however find numerous music videos for a song ภวังค์รัก, which presumably the movie is named after; I particularly like this version for its blurry, dated looking visuals:

This brings up something I’ve noticed about the older Thai pop culture that I’m kind of fascinated by: a lot of it looks older than it really is. For instance, I’ve seen films from the 90s that look (to me) like they’re from the 70s; some of the lakorn that I seen from circa 2000 looks, well, not as recent as that; etc.

In some cases this might have to due with film stock that’s aged poorly, but I think it goes beyond that to “stylistic” elements. Like this song, ภวังค์รัก: to me, it sounds more like something out of the 60s than the 90s.

I was born in the U.S., at the very end of the 60s. Growing up, and on into adulthood, one of the things that I absorbed from the culture around me was the look and feel — as preserved in certain media — of different time periods. A movie from the 40s has a certain distinct look, a movie from the 70s a completely different look; a 50s song sounds and feels different than an 80s song; etc.

Now I find myself consuming Thai pop culture that induces a kind of temporal disorientation because it doesn’t align with my sense of how something from a given point in time “should” look and feel. Specifically, I find myself viewing shows (or listening to songs, etc) from time periods that I lived through — I mean, it wasn’t even all that long ago, right?!?! — and it feels like I’m peering back into some distant, faraway era.

It’s kind of like looking back over the not-too-distant past through a telescope that’s been flipped wrong-way around.

I find it intriguing.

Maybe I’m just starting to feel old?

Aside from all that, I really like this mellow song; maybe it could just be the soundtrack to right now, and a particularly mellow “now” at that….